Six months ago, the world ended. The Baugh Contagion swept across the planet. Its victims were left twitching, adrenalized cannibals that quickly became know as Junkies. Civilization crumbled as people created isolated safe havens to hide from the infected... and the possibly infected. Now, as society nears a tipping point, lives will intersect and intertwine across two days in a desolate city.

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Publisher's Summary

Audie Award Nominee, Original Work, 2013

Six months ago, the world ended. The Baugh Contagion swept across the planet. Its victims were left twitching, adrenalized cannibals that quickly became know as Junkies. Civilization crumbled as people created isolated safe havens to hide from the infected... and the possibly infected. Now, as society nears a tipping point, lives will intersect and intertwine across two days in a desolate city.

The Junkie Quatrain is four tales of survival, and four types of post-apocalypse story, because the end of the world means different things for different people. Loss. Opportunity. Hope. Or maybe just another day on the job.

Just finished The Junkie Quatrain - didn't finish the laundry (thanks Peter!) because I was so engaged by these stories - and I am sitting here a bit awe struck. I'm not a huge monster fan especially the zombie type monsters with no individuality. But I picked up The Junkie Quatrain on sale because I enjoyed 14 so much and I am so glad I did. Nothing special about these monsters but there is something pretty special about 4 tightly written monster stories that could each stand alone but each connects to the others in such clever ways. In quick strokes, Peter Clines defines each of the central characters so that you invest in them immediately and each of these shorts then delivers a lot of punch. Mr. Clines can certainly write and Christian Rummel and Therese Plummer each do nice narrator turns with the material. It's not that the stories themselves are too short - each is a perfect length and locks in with the others almost with a "snap". It's just that the "snap" each time is such a "AHA" payoff in the brain you want it to go on and on. It's like watching a great dancer do a few quick amazing moves on the dance floor and then walk away before you can quite grasp what you saw. I totally loved this set of interlocking vignettes!

It is four stories about post apocalyptic California. At some point each story intersects.I love the way the story unfolds. You get information from different points of view so you learn more in each story Very entertaining. It was short so I listened to it twice so I could pick up on more things. I enjoy Peter. Clines. The narration was very good too.I bought it on sale I thought it was fabulous.

wish there was more! the 4 short stories are great. they weave together seamlessly. my disappoint is the clines could've made a full-blown book out of this material. the stories are great, but they just end. there's no resolution. the stories end just as the characters begin to reveal themselves. i was left frustrated, wondering what happens next. it's like clines wrote 1/3 of a book then just quit. i really hope clines publishes more, continuing the stories he started. i kind of feel cheated that it just ended! however, i sure did enjoy the ride while it lasted! it's like a rollercoaster- i was thrilled listening to the audiobook, but when it was over, i wanted to keep riding.

Each story has an interesting character. Each story reveals part of the overall plot- what has happened, how it has affected the world, and how different types of people have survived. Clines builds an interesting world that longs to be explored. We get just enough to start salivating, but he leaves us wanting more. Lots of potential.

so if you've got a few hours to burn, listen to these short stories. they're better than everything in the movie theaters and on the tube right now.

1*=I didn't like it.....
2*=It was OK......
3*=It was good but I will never read it again..........
4*=Maybe I will read it again in the future..............
5*=I will definitely read it again(maybe more than once)

I love Clines Ex-Heroes and Ex-Patriot novels (both awesome reads/listens), and decided to give the Junkie Quatrain a listen.

I'm glad I did! This is an apocalypse novel that has all the right elements to keep me listening. Good concept and delivery. Characters in whom I want to invest. Descriptive settings and direction. Good action sequences. Solid writing. And my favorite - engaging. Once you've engaged a listener, and KEEP them engaged, you've won.

Most apocalypse novels far short on all these, but Clines did this in the Quatrain superbly. One of the simple but brilliant concepts was to have these stories connect, so we see difference perspectives on the shared event. That's thinking out of the box as a novelist. Simply put, this is good writing for the genre' and I highly recommend it.

This apocalypse is based on a virus that reduces the infected carrier to a muttering, sometimes screaming, violent and animalistic maniac. Scientifically more believable than reanimated flesh, I'd say. So, it adequately suspends dis-belief. Only the sane survive, but barely, as the world becomes one large sanitarium for the utterly mad and canniballistic. Hey, it could happen!

This is escapism at its purest level. No big lessons here. Just gold old-fashioned adventuring. At times we NEED an adventure, and Clines definitely delivers in the Junkie Quatrain, as well as his other works, to which I've re-listened, catching nuances I missed in earlier listens.

I have only one complaint - Why, oh why, can't this be a full length novel?

This book is short and sweet, but leaves you wanting more. I didn’t read the description before I started listening so when the first vignette ended, I was confused, but quickly found my bearings again. There are four stories which all overlap somewhere.

The world ended 6 months ago, disease spread across the earth, creating “adrenalized cannibals” called Junkies, and our story follows four groups as they travel to find safety without becoming infected.

I got this book after reading the Ex-Heroes series by the same author, but I wonder what was going through the author's mind when he wrote it. It may just be me, but I couldn't bring myself to care about the characters nor consider the zombies a believable threat.

I like Jack Reacher style characters regardless of setting. Put them in outer space, in modern America, in a military setting, on an alien planet... no worries. Book has non moralistic vigilante-justice? Sign me up!
(oh, I read urban fantasy, soft and hard sci-fi, trashy vampire and zombie novels too)

This was (sort of ) a collection of 4 inter-related short stories. I am not sure if I knew that fact when I started the book and, if I had, I might have skipped it because I don't normally like short stories. However, this book reads more like a single story, told from 4 different view points. Sure, each of the sections has different characters as the centrepiece, but they are all connected, and the world and happenings in it are all the same.

So, essentially, it is a novel with 4 different main characters rather than a collection of short stories. And I actually quite enjoyed it. It is a zombie tale, so of course there is the usual death and gore, but it is not a hack-n-slash type, and the characters do behave in normal ways (i.e. the author doesn't make them do stupid things like walk down a dark alley by themselves in order to create an opportunity for "bad things" to happen).

There is a logical explanation for the zombie breakout because they are not actually the living dead (which would take a greater leap of faith to accept as possible) - they are infected with a virus, which does make the possibility of their existence quite believable. (Don't misunderstand me though, this is a zombie novel, so, of course, there is a whole level of gross behaviour that will require you suspend your disbelief).

The narration is good, there is no sex, minimal swearing and not much gore, considering it is a zombie book.

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